What if they discovered Mohammed tomb?

Except both the Jews (other than the Sadducees) of the early first century as well as Jesus himself (according to all the oldest surviving texts) preached that not only would your spirit/soul/life essence survive, but that your BODY would be resurrected.

And not merely so you can die again in a few decades of disease/physical death, but some kind of eternal, millennial existence in a Messianic Kingdom.


The idea that your body rots and your soul lives on forever by itself is from popular Greek philosophy.


So if Jesus died, he walked out of the tomb, then died later, and then his spirit rose by itself (while his body rotted) it would make the New Testament in error, and disprove the beliefs of the early Christians handily. There might still be a resurrection, but it might be in the far flung future, rather than for Jesus and select individuals in the first century at that time.


The idea that Jesus' resurrection & ascension was a "spiritual" only is a completely "modernist" idea that arose in the 18th/19th century as a way to downplay the miracles in the Bible whilst still claiming to be "Christian."

Both the resurrection AND the ascension were miraculous and are described in the Biblical accounts as being of both his body and whatever is inhabiting it (soul, spirit, etc).

And far from denying it, the Gnostic sects would sooner deny he had a body at all (thus the idea that he'd leave a corpse behind after rising either from the tomb or to heaven completely nonsensical) than agree to this Modernist alternative to the New Testament teaching...

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Well, the original sources for the ascension is the book of Acts (same author as the Gospel of Luke) which was written in the first century (between 70 and 100 CE). The resurrection is mentioned in later editions of the Gospel of Mark (65-80 CE iirc), Matthew, Luke, and John. Though I should also mention that the letters of Paul (50's-60's CE) which predate the Gospels also allude to it, for instance by saying that Jesus "was raised from the dead" and took his place "at the right hand of the Father" and similar phrases.


If you read the texts, it sounds like Jesus has a physical body after he comes out of the tomb, though it has new abilities (hence people tend to refer to it as his "glorified" body) like being able to appear through walls/locked doors and vanish at will. He can still eat food (which he does in front of the disciples to prove he isn't a ghost), and he displays the nail holes and the wound in his side to "doubting" Thomas.

He ascension appears to be physical as well, rather than his soul rising or something and leaving his body behind.

So all these alternate theories of Jesus "swooning" on the cross and being recessistated later, or having his body switched supernaturally with somebody else, or leaving his body to rot in the tomb and only his "spirit" ascending to heaven are all later explanations, not supported by the earliest records (the New Testament writings).

In the late 19th/early 20th centuries there was a so-called "Modernist" movement among Christian denominations to try to explain away all the miracles in the Bible naturalistically or to deny miracles altogether. This movement would say things like "well, Jesus wasn't really born of a virgin, it was just symbolic" (ie: Jesus was the product of rape, or Joseph was "possessed" by an angel and had intercourse with his wife), that the resurrection didn't literally happen (ex: "it was just his soul that rose from the grave and appeared to people in dreams"), that the second coming is just symbolic and so forth. This lead to what came to be known as "Fundamentalism" which was basically a reactionary movement against the "modernists" to say that no, all these things (as traditionally believed, namely the divine inspiration of Scripture, the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the second coming of Christ, the virgin conception and birth of Jesus, and so forth) were really true, and couldn't be explained away naturalistically or in a way that denied the ability of God to work miracles. So some churches and individual Christians still exist who take the "modernist" stance, and many who take the "fundamentalist" stance (of course it should be pointed out that what we today refer to as "fundamentalists" are far more "strict" and "radical" if you will than these early fundamentalists, since many moderate or even fairly liberal churches still agree on the basic "fundamentals" but don't hold to other stances commonly held by other "fundamentalists" today and thought of in an often negative light--like being strongly anti-gay, insisting on young earth creationism, abstinance only sex education, pro-censorship, King James version only, anti-other denominations or whatever else you can think of).

The Roman Catholic Church for example, condemned Modernism within its own ranks, but is not generally thought of as a "fundamentalist" denomination, for instance.


But anyway, sorry to get off track. The idea of a bodily (and by necessity also spiritual) resurrection and ascension of Jesus comes straight from the New Testament. It was only really questioned or outright rejected by heretical groups like the 2nd-3rd century Gnostics (many of whom insisted that Jesus had no body--only appearing to be human, or left his body behind since it was just a "shell" for the divine Christ), 7th century Muslims (who believe Jesus has yet to die, and someone else took his place on the cross), and 19th century (and on) Modernists and conspiracy theorists (the latter of which may say he ran away to India or Japan, married, had children, and died).

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Kurgan-10, you seem to have some knowledge of the topic, but I'm not surprised to see that you, like majority of the non-Muslim world, still see all Muslims in the world as having the same belief. The fact is that just like Christianity or Judaism, there are several sects or schools of thought found within the same religion.

I apologize for giving the impression that I thought that Islam was a monolithic religious system with only one set of beliefs. I am aware, that like Christianity and Judaism, it is divided into a few large branches, and numerous smaller sects and spinoffs (including the larger Sunni and Shia, as well as Wahabism, the Sufis, Siikhism which became its own religion... and the smaller sects known as "the Nation of Islam" and "Nation of Gods and Earths" aka the "Five Percenters").

I was speaking generally of traditional Islam, which, yes, has the Quran as its focal point, and the Hadith as second in authority... and I "essentialized" these authorities and the traditional interpretations of them.

First of all, Jesus is declared to be a prophet just like Prophet Moses, Prophet Abraham and Prophet Muhammad and thousands of more prophets. Muslims foremost believe in the teachings of the Qur'an, which states that on the Day of Judgment, Jesus will reply to God regarding Trinity:

I said nothing to them except that which Thou didst command me-- `Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord' and I was a witness over them as long as I remained among them, but since Thou didst cause me to die, Thou hast been the Watcher over them, and Thou art Witness over all things. (5:118)

Which of course Christians and Jews reject. Neither recognize Muhammad as being a prophet. Heck, he wasn't even Jewish! Besides, not everyone who claims to be a prophet is one, both warned of false prophets centuries before Muhammad came.

So while the vast majority of modern Jews do not recognize the deity of Christ, likewise they do not recognize the prophethood of Muhammad or the divine inspiration of the Quran. Christians see the passage above as a false prophet's attempt to put words into Jesus' mouth.

The above passage anyway is in context, correct me if I'm wrong, of Jesus in the end time, in which case, he HAS died.

But see, Muslims believe that Jesus RIGHT NOW (and since the first century) was whisked away from earth and is living in heaven. So presumably he is either in Star Trek-style stasis, or he's sitting around, eating sleep, and going to the toilet in paradise, waiting for the time of the final judgment when he will return to earth, resume aging, and fight the antichrist, deconvert the Christians, slaughter a bunch of pigs, etc. and finally die at age 40.

Muslims have not explained why God needed to save him from death in the first place and let the world believe he had been crucified for six centuries... but why he'd let him die young in the far flung future, etc.

In the past Muslims have said "Well, God would never let one of his prophets be killed, especially not in a torturous or shameful fashion" yet they don't seem to have a problem with the deaths of thousands of Muslims or even the purported shameful executions of "thousands of unknown prophets" before Jesus.

Plus, which is more important, the physical bodies of the prophets or their message? According to that logic, God would rather Jesus not be physically harmed by people, than for his message to be preached correctly, to save their souls!

More verses:

The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a Messenger; surely Messengers like unto him had indeed passed away before him. And his mother was a truthful woman. They both used to eat food. (5:76)

This is irrelevant. Angels and humans in paradise eat food. And God "consumes sacrifices." Eating food is not a marker of whether one is "merely human" or not.

Muslims believe both were sinless. Yet only Jesus, according to them, is immortal (for now) and only Jesus was born of a virgin. Jesus worked real miracles. Sure some Muslims try to say that the Quran is a miracle, because Muhammad was illiterate and wrote "the greatest book in history." But literary excellence is rather subjective (and more popular books have been written), plus it is more likely that Muhammad was merely expressing humility or lack of confidence in his ability than inability (compare to Moses saying he is "slow of speech" as an excuse why he shouldn't be favored to be God's mouthpiece in the Torah). Plus, learned Muslims will admit that Muhammad himself did not "write" the Quran (the word is "recite, in the name of the God" not "read," meaning he was "inspired" to repeat words put into his mind, not write down what he was hearing). Rather, the "Quran" is a collection of statements and stories repeated and memorized through oral tradition (supplemented with some written notes) which was later edited and compiled into a text (which was standardized under Uthman due to varying accounts).


Jesus cannot be compared to Adam (or Eve) because both of them sinned, and neither worked miracles.

And Muhammad is only a Messenger. Verily, (all) Messengers have passed away before him. If then he die or be slain, will you turn your back on your heels? (3:145)


Above two verses are given in the same manner, and the Islamic belief is that prophets come to this world to guide people, they have no use up in the heavens physically. Only their soul goes there after death.

So Jesus will get a new (adult) body in the future? Or will he be reborn?

Because I wasn't aware that Muslims believed in reincarnation.

Plus, Muslims describe paradise in very physical terms... there will be lots of hardcore, physical sex going on, and lots of eating and drinking, and even excreting of waste products (though as musky perfumed sweat instead of urine and feces, according to Muhammad).

I didn't think "souls" did that stuff. So I think it would be natural for a Muslim to imagine Jesus eating grapes, drinking wine, and being "waited on" by dozens of "dark eyed houris" and lounging under shade trees waiting for the end to come.

Is a soul a disembodied "ghost" type thing that has no substance in Islamic thought?

Now, a lot of Muslims do believe that Jesus is in heaven with his physical body and take the above verses to mean Jesus’ death after his literal second manifestation on earth. This view was influenced by Christianity in the past few centuries and is also clearly rejected within the Qur’an, so we cannot take it as authentic.

What would you estimate the percentages of Muslims who believe one vs. the other are? Is this a sect thing? How do the Muslims scholars fall into those categories?

The bodily resurrection view (the idea that our bodies in paradise will be physical, if immortal and perfected) goes back to the Jews before Jesus. Christianity retained belief in the bodily resurrection, as it appears too that the traditional Muslims did.

Is this a "modernist" movement within Islam? Again, I don't see how these passages about "paradise" are meant to be understood if Muslims believe the afterlife will be one of disembodied shades (which incidentally, is an idea mostly from Greek philosophy, or I suppose some Egyptian strains of thought).

I hope this presented a new approach to this discussion for everyone. I’ve tried to keep this post short; however, I’ll be open to any questions regarding this view.

Here's a useful website for those interested in learning more about the research done to find the actual tomb: http://www.tombofjesus.com

That site is pseudo-scholarly garbage, sorry.

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History vs. the Da Vinci Code

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